Nick Lachey, the lead singer of the boy band 98 Degrees, was recently caught on camera as he assaulted a female photographer. After spotting her taking photos, Lachey approached and tried to snatch her phone. The incident was caught on camera, and the singer was ordered to attend anger management and AA meetings.
The incident took place in March 2022. Lachey spotted photographer Jody Santos taking photos of him with a camera. and Santos was taking photos from her car. The pop star approached her, and the woman probably whipped out her phone to film the evidence in case he became aggressive. And so he did – verbally first, and then he tried taking her phone out of her hands. She claims she could smell alcohol and that Lachey was drunk when he attacked her.
“In all my years of photographing celebrities, no one has ever tried to hit me,” Santos told Daily Mail. “I am just relieved that I rolled up my window as fast as I did, otherwise, he would have knocked me out.” She added that Santos, driving around celebrity hot spots at night and snapping photos of stars leaving fancy restaurants is common practice in her profession – and she’s been a paparazzi for 18 years.
The court has ordered Lachey, one year after the incident, another year of “sitting in the corner in thinking about his behavior.” In other words, he must attend 52 anger management sessions and 12 months of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Otherwise, he’ll receive a criminal record and charges by Santos of Battery and Assault.
On the one hand, I think Lachey had the right to feel angry and annoyed. Paparazzi invading your privacy on a Sunday night while enjoying food and booze with friends… I don’t think anyone would enjoy that. However, I’m in no way defending his actions. No matter how angry or annoyed you are, you have no right to attack someone physically and try to take their phone (or any other belonging, for that matter). No matter how much I personally dislike the concept of paparazzi, I’m still siding with Santos on this one. What do you think?
[via Digital Camera World]
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